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Simple Summary: Lung adenocarcinoma, a leading cause of cancer-related deaths, poses treatment challenges. This study explores the role of HBQ1 in the disease. Elevated HBQ1 expression in adenocarcinoma tissues correlates with poor survival. Functional experiments reveal HBQ1 as an oncogene, promoting cell proliferation, and as an antioxidant, reducing reactive oxygen species levels. In vivo studies support HBQ1's role in tumor growth, suggesting it as a potential therapeutic target. These findings highlight HBQ1's crucial involvement in lung adenocarcinoma progression, proposing its use as a diagnostic marker and therapeutic target. Lung adenocarcinoma is a crucial contributor to cancer-related mortality; however, effective treatments remain challenging. The present study aimed to investigate the role of hemoglobin subunit theta 1 (HBQ1), an α subunit of hemoglobin whose expression has recently been reported in non-erythroid cells, in lung adenocarcinoma. Comparative analysis showed that HBQ1 expression was significantly higher in lung adenocarcinoma tissues compared to normal lung tissues. Moreover, high HBQ1 expression was correlated with unfavorable overall survival and progression-free survival in patients, highlighting its potential as a prognostic marker. Our functional experiments revealed that when overexpressed, HBQ1 acts as an oncogene, enhancing cell proliferation, whereas HBQ1 knockdown inhibits it. Additionally, HBQ1 exhibited antioxidant properties by reducing basal reactive oxygen species levels, playing a crucial role in lung adenocarcinoma progression. These findings emphasize the critical role of HBQ1 in driving tumor growth and progression in lung adenocarcinoma. Our in vivo studies further supported the role of HBQ1 in lung adenocarcinoma. HBQ1 knockdown resulted in the inhibition of lung adenocarcinoma growth, demonstrating the potential of HBQ1 as a therapeutic target. Our findings highlight the importance of HBQ1 in lung adenocarcinoma and suggest its potential as both a diagnostic marker and a molecular target for therapeutic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Lung adenocarcinoma is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Even though advanced anticancer drugs are available, prognosis of patients with lung cancer is dismal and there is an urgent need to explore novel oncogenic mechanisms to overcome these therapeutic limitations. GPR87 is upregulated in various cancers, but its biological function has not yet been established in lung cancer. Here, we discovered that GPR87 is upregulated in lung adenocarcinoma and overexpressed GPR87 contributes to poor prognosis in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. We used GPR87-overexpressing and GPR87-silenced lung adonocarcinoma cell lines, along with in vivo studies, to demonstrate that overexpression of GPR87 promoted invasiveness and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Our study identified the AKT-eNOS-NO signaling axis to be the mechanism by which GPR87 exerted its oncogenic function. Lung adenocarcinoma is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Despite the availability of advanced anticancer drugs for lung cancer treatment, the prognosis of patients still remains poor. There is a need to explore novel oncogenic mechanisms to overcome these therapeutic limitations. The functional experiments in vitro and in vivo were performed to evaluate the role of GPR87 expression on lung adenocarcinoma metastasis. The public lung adenocarcinoma dataset was used to determine the clinical relevance of GPR87 expression in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. GPR87 is upregulated in various cancer; however, the biological function of GPR87 has not yet been established in lung adenocarcinoma. In this study, we found that GPR87 expression is upregulated in lung adenocarcinoma and is associated with poor patient prognosis. Additionally, we showed that GPR87 overexpression promotes invasiveness and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that AKT-eNOS-NO signaling is a novel downstream pathway of GPR87 in lung adenocarcinoma. Conversely, we confirmed that silencing of GPR87 expression suppressed these phenotypes. Our results reveal the oncogenic function of GPR87 in cancer progression and metastasis through the activation of eNOS as a key mediator. Therefore, we propose that targeting eNOS could be a novel therapeutic strategy to improve the clinical treatment of lung adenocarcinoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]